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About the Author

Rabbi Yaakov Salomon, C.S.W. is a noted psychotherapist, in private practice in Brooklyn, N.Y. for over 25 years. He is a Senior Lecturer and the Creative Director of Aish Hatorah's Discovery Productions. He is also an editor and author for the Artscroll Publishing Series and a member of the Kollel of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath.

In these marvelous stories -- brimming with wit, understanding, a touch of irony and a large helping of authentic Torah perspective -- we will walk with a renowned and experienced psychotherapist and popular author through the pathways of contemporary life: its crowded sidewalks, its pedestrian malls, and the occasional dead end street. This is a walk through our lives that will be fun, entertaining -- and eye-opening. In our full -- sometimes overfull -- and complex lives, Yaakov Salomon is a welcome and much-needed voice of sanity and reason.

His speaking, writing and musical talents have delighted audiences from Harvard to Broadway and everything in between. Rabbi Salomon shares his life with his wife, Temmy, and their unpredictable family.

Visitor Comments: 11

(11)
Anonymous,
December 20, 2013 8:12 PM

no excuse is acceptable

It appears some would discount the atrocities committed under Horthy's leadership because he did some good for Hungary, but then Hitler was a romantic to his mistress, Eva Braun and no doubt seen as a gentleman but his associates. he was a mass murderer who disregarded the lives of every Jew on earth. There is no salvation for either Hitler or Horthy.

(10)
Andy Gabor,
December 20, 2013 3:00 AM

Thank you Rabbi Solomon for the comments

I hope that lots of people will view the comments . Well said and a statue to a murderer of human beings because of their beliefs is a disgrace to a nation.I was born in Hungary but never will go and visit

(9)
Aleksandar Veljic,
December 19, 2013 9:28 PM

Book About Horthy's crimes

Thank you for this video. I have written a book dedicated to gruesome Horthy's crimes, "Genocide Revealed" (www.genociderevealed.com)

(8)
M J Spaulding,
December 19, 2013 6:53 PM

Horrified at what is happening

I was a child during WWII but at the end when I saw the pictures from the concentration camps I was horrified and today the news from Europe and even my own country scare me. I don't understand why but I don't like what I see happening. I must not happen again. BTW I am a Christian.

(7)
Jerry E.,
December 19, 2013 5:13 PM

A Bit Too Rough

I can certainly understand your feelings regarding Horthy, given your background. However, There is a great deal of history to be considered. Horthy felt that he had to throw in with Germany, because of his justifiabled fear of Communist Russia. He was also permitted to annex parts of Czechoslovakia, Roumania, and Yugoslavia, as a reward. As the war began and progressed, Horthy found the alliance to be more and more destructive. He also lost power to his vriulent prime minister, and it was he, and not Horthy that sent the Jews to Auchwitz. In fact, many believe that the number of Jews deported was significantly fewer than it would have been were it not for Horthy. I'm not saying that he was some sort of pristine hero, or even that a statue of him is a good idea, but he was as good as Hungary could have expected in those troubled times. Your "I have always been an anti-semite" quote is accurate, but out of contest. He had written thie to virulently anti-semitic elements, in an effor to placate them, much as he had to pass some contraining laws to appease Hitler, (whom he came to despise). When, in 1948, he was summoned to the Nurenberg tribunal, he was pretty much exonerated of any wrong-doing. It is my opinion, that Horthy did what he could considering the very weak hand he was dealt, and forced to play. Perhaps a statue is a bit much, but he fended off a lot worse elements. And his anti-Jewish laws were far milder than the opportunistic Mussollini's, the latter betraying his copious Jewish supporters. Without them, he never c ould have seized the government in 1922-3.

(6)
Frank Adam,
December 19, 2013 4:01 PM

Check out Salaszi

My Father was 15 in 1919 when Horthy cleared out Bela Kun's Communist episode and emplaced machine gun crews on the streets of Budapest in the process. So I have always known why my Father fled and known of MH. Do check out if he was in power or the Arrow Cross Salaszi government and Eichmann did deport the Hungarian Community in summer 1944. In spite of everything Horthy was a Hungarian nationalist in spades and exercised quite a bit of internal independence including NOT deporting his Jews pronto and keeping most of his army at home to watch the Romanians. In 1944 Hungary was about 8 million population with 400 000 Jews or 1/20th population and workforce. To lose them would have been twice the loss pro-rata than for Poland to lose its Jewish 10%. Further with the Russians on the doorstep Horthy was thinking of switching sides a Bulgaria and Romanis did - or was thought to be intending to do so which is why Hitler toppled him for Szalasi who could not see beyond his nose. Clarifying this is a matter of checking the history to the month if not the week. What is definite is that the Russian siege of Budapest did save the Jews trapped there including one of my cousins.

(5)
Kenan Moss,
December 18, 2013 12:04 PM

Disguised victims

The problem is not only Hungary. Half the countries of Europe have been allowed to hide behind the yashmak of having been "victims". Austria has never been called into court: neither the Baltic states nor Poland have said their mea culpas. What of Romania and even France? Until one admits ones sins one cannot atone for them: this why History repeats itself.

(4)
Joe Katzman,
December 18, 2013 3:18 AM

When Evils Were Most Free

I had the good fortune to meet and speak with George Egri, a Hungarian Jew whose book "When Evils Were Most Free" is my best recommendation for people who want to understand Hungary from 1920-1956.

Horthy was a Nazi collaborator. To present him fully, however, Egri is emphatic that there was a seismically large difference between Horthy and the Arrow Cross who seized power from him as part of Germany's Operation Panzerfaust (Horthy had negotiated a cease-fire with Russia).

Serious deportations began after that, and were curtailed by the fact that Russia overran the country fairly swiftly. György Konrad's "Feast in the Garden" describes this period of full Nazi control.

So, Horthy. Collaborator? Yes. Jew-Hater? Yes. At least partly responsible for the evils done to Hungarian Jewry? Yes. Guy who is at least partly responsible for many of the Hungarian Jews who did survive the war? Yes, he's that, too.

Still wouldn't put up a statue to the guy. But it isn't the same thing as, say, a statue to (executed war criminal and Arrow Cross founder) Ferenc Szálasi.

Meanwhile, Europe is likely to become Jew-free thanks to a newer strain of anti-Semitism emanating from the Muslim community and the political Left, with support from some local neo-fascists. I'm more concerned about the Red-Green-Black alliance's statutes, than I am about Hungarian statues.

(3)
Shosh,
December 17, 2013 10:09 PM

Hungarian mentality

A reflection on the soul of Hungary. Sad but true, would so many Hungarian Jews have been murdered if there weren't so many collaborators? We delude ourselves in thinking that these Eastern European countries have matured into tolerance. They hate us, it is institutionalized thru their churches and civic societies.

(2)
Dvora,
December 17, 2013 5:56 AM

Horthy was a pawn of Hitler's. He would not have done these acts independently.

1st I agree he shouldn't be honored; but your comments are out of context after I read Wikipedia."Horthy's personal views on Jews and their role in Hungarian society are the subject of some debate. In an October 1940 letter to prime minister Pál Teleki, Horthy echoed a widespread national sentiment: that Jews enjoyed too much success in commerce, the professions, and industry – success which needed to be curtailed:

As regards the Jewish problem, I have been an anti-Semite throughout my life. I have never had contact with Jews. I have considered it intolerable that here in Hungary everything, every factory, bank, large fortune, business, theater, press, commerce, etc. should be in Jewish hands, and that the Jew should be the image reflected of Hungary, especially abroad. Since, however, one of the most important tasks of the government is to raise the standard of living, i.e., we have to acquire wealth, it is impossible, in a year or two, to replace the Jews, who have everything in their hands, and to replace them with incompetent, unworthy, mostly big-mouthed elements, for we should become bankrupt. This requires a generation at least.[28]

Nevertheless, as the war years progressed, Horthy proved to be more protective of Hungary's Jews than many of his political colleagues, and much more so than his political rivals.[citation needed] In this light, his insistence that he was an "anti-Semite" may have been an effort to give himself political cover against the attacks from the extreme antisemitic elements of Hungarian politics.[citation needed]"

(1)
Anonymous,
December 15, 2013 11:36 AM

Greetings from Hungary

Dear Rabbi Solomon, Welcome to 2013 Hungary. Erecting a statue for Horthy was really just the icing on the cake. After the government had made 4 fascist writers (Wass Albert, Nyírő Gyula, Szabó Desző, Sinka István) part of the school curriculum last year , who have nothing else in common (besides being fairly unimportant and forgettable artists) but being openly antisemitic between the two World Wars... And not listing Kertész Imre, the only Hungarian (Jewish) Nobel laureate among Hungarian writers in the same curriculum... And a street almost named after another otherwise no-name such writer (Tormany Cécile) in Budapest, after a statue having been erected for her in one of the districts of the capital.... Yes, antisemitism has been escalating exponentailly since the radical right Jobbik party's appearance 10 year ago. The Horthy statue is their doing, too. But it is worth to note that every other emblematic figure of that era, the politicians actually running Horthy's system for him (Bethlen István, Klebersberg Kuno, Teleki Pál) were all rehabilitated immediately 23 years ago with streets named after them all over the country. Major representatives of a system which introduced a Nazi-kind Jewish Law (Numerus Clausus) in as early as 1920 limiting the number of Jewish university students and leading Hungary on a path which led straight to the alliance with Germany during World War II. Not to mention an underground station and one of Budapest's central roads named after an anisemitic nationalist politician from the same era (Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Endre) in as early as 1945. So facing the sins of the past has not really happened here anyway. What changed with Jobbik's appearance is that radical right antisemitic views, which had been held by many in private but had not been considered presentable, gradually became acceptable in private and even public speech (and deeds).